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Dining Alone in Zorritos (A Poem)

Last updated: 2nd March, 2017

This post features a guest poem by Adam Stengel, an American writer and traveler.

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Dining Alone in Zorritos

Even my agua sounds way too Anglo,
so a third-party is needed to wet my tongue.
Like every night, I’m dining alone in the evening.
This place is a desert coast where every day
is Donkey Thanksgiving, where goats

munch from the lawns of the national bank.
The bulls, there, on the Panamericana,
terrify me with their heads, lowered and ready.
When eating, I hoped, for the folks back home,
to paint the gringo picturesque, but

that’s for guidebooks. Instead, what happened:
From the front deck of the polleria,
I witnessed a pickup pull in to the clinic.
Lying in its bed was a large man, dead.
People who’d been in the square gathered

and lifted his dusty body from the truck.
I just sat there, fidgeting, nibbling on chicken.
Sure, I wanted to help carry the corpse,
but I turned away. Even the goats watched.
I guess that means I’m still American.

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Quick Tip: If travelling to or from Lima Airport, it is strongly recommended to use the luxury Airport Express Lima bus to get to or from your hotel. Safer and cheaper than a taxi with no baggage limit as well as Free Wi-Fi and USB chargers onboard, it is ideal for travellers.